“Not A Chew Toy” EP Release Party After Nimbus Open House

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November 16, 2015

Community is at the heart of Nimbus. When it comes to making music, sound, videos, and media, collaboration is not only necessary but often considered one of the most exciting parts of the creative process. With hundreds of EPs in production each year by our students and alumni alone, if our studio walls could talk they would tell some incredible stories and sing some great songs.

One recent story comes by way of an upcoming EP for the band Not A Chew Toy, which will have its release following the Nimbus November Open House & BBQ coming up this Saturday, November 21st.

Alumnus Travis Dean explained:

“The EP is a really neat culmination of a lot of things that were happening at Nimbus at the time (September-December 2014). I was able to do a full on real production. Justin Mattock was the producer and I was the artist on it. We had two or three engineers per session, runners, assistant engineers, photographers, extra players to show up and do harmonies and things like that. It really embodied everything that Nimbus had to offer at that time. We used so many people on it, there’s a ridiculous number of gang vocals.” After graduation, Travis said they decided they could do a few things better now that they had completed the course. “So, we got in touch with Brandon Brown (nimbus tech and alumnus) and he re-recorded some of the guitars for us. So did Morgan Coates. Brandon Brown mixed it and it has been mastered by Brock McFarlane of CPS Mastering. I think it embodies everything Nimbus. It is the final release from our time at Nimbus. We did 11 songs while I was here. These are the last four.”

Who Is Not A Chew Toy?

Mark and Travis have been jamming for just over a year and a half. “Our first show was May 30th, 2014. We had our first EP release on our anniversary this year. We believe in puppy liberation,” said Travis. “That’s why we’re called Not A Chew Toy… because we believe that puppies are people too. We’re trying to push that whole puppy love factor into society. It needs to be there,” he says with a smile. “We don’t take ourselves seriously at all. There’s a lot of banter on stage. We also don’t play covers very often, but we will be playing a super secret cover at the EP release show.”

Describe Not A Chew Toy’s Music

“It’s definitely changed. When I got to Nimbus, I was told I couldn’t record my own band. Which is good because it made me a better producer. As a result, the first 7 songs were produced by 3 different producers. They were very old school, very raw and punky, grungy. These new songs are a lot darker, more riff driven and it’s all in the tuning of A432, because we like music conspiracy theories. We started playing in 432 and we’ve noticed that our jamming feels better, the singing and creative aspect comes easier and people move along easier to our music. We find that we touch alot of people deep down without trying now. And we’re doing the exact same thing other than that! It’s pretty cool.”

The amount of community that was put into this particular EP… It’s phenomenal the amount of people who had their hands in it and made it possible. To have that culmination and get those people back together for one final hurrah is always a good thing.

Here’s a list of the Nimbus students and alumni who were involved in the making of the EP (in alphabetical order):

Want to learn more about Nimbus? Fill out this form, or come check out Nimbus at our Open House this Saturday! Details here!

Located in beautiful, Vancouver, BC, Canada Nimbus School of Recording & Media (formerly Nimbus School of Recording Arts) is the elite music and media school offering small class sizes, mentorship from industry experts, hands-on training, and 24/7 access to our professional studios. Nimbus was co-founded by renowned music producers Bob Ezrin and GGGarth Richardson. All of our courses are taught by current industry professionals. We offer diploma and certificate programs in: audio engineering, music production, video production, post & game audio, live sound and music industry entrepreneurship. Nimbus helps students create their future in music and media.